A family of five in the State of Haryana in Northern India is struggling to make ends meet as winter approaches, after refusing to give up their Christian faith at the behest of their husband and father, it was reported in early December.
Ramesh Kumar, a Hindu, is scandalised by his family coming to faith in Jesus Christ. This is a common response to conversion in India, where changing one’s faith from Hinduism is abhorred and can lead to extreme violence. In many States anti-conversion laws exists.
In February, Mr Kumar, a married father of four, decided he could no longer tolerate his family’s attendance at a local church, and demanded that they cease observing Christian worship. When they did not give in to his demand he began beating his wife and children. Despite his well-paid job as a government employee he cut them off financially.
The eldest son Neeraj used his meagre income as a shop clerk to provide for his mother and siblings. They also received some intermittent help from a maternal uncle when these wage earnings were not quite enough.
Losing his job
Not satisfied with this hardship he had put on his children, Kumar approached his son’s employer to interfere with Neeraj’s ability to feed his family. As a result, due to his father’s efforts to malign his character and out of fear of attracting further trouble, the owner told Neeraj that he could no longer work at the shop. Mr Kumar escalated his assault saying: ‘If you do not stop going to church, I will drive you out from the house and file an [apostasy] case against you all, since you have changed your religion.’
Mr Kumar finally submitted a complaint to the police station in which he fabricated a story claiming that his family would ‘take me to church forcefully’ and ‘want me to change my religion’. Mr Kumar further concocted that when he refused to do that his ‘family members tied my legs and hands and took me to the church,’ falsely alleging that his son had said ‘if you will not go to church with us then we can kill you.’
The children and their mother have resolved that they won’t stop going to church because they ‘know Jesus is the true God who died for us’. These events have only served to strengthen their faith in Jesus Christ and have made them more determined to follow Jesus despite the suffering and deprivation they now face.
